From Educational STSE to Content Environmentalization and Environmental Citizenship Training

Abstract

This article reviews the contributions of the STSE approach to science education from five aspects. Firstly, it describes the approach from scientific literacy in the traditional vision, in the one centered on the utility of science and in the emancipatory vision. Secondly, it analyzes the STS approach in interaction with the environment; this is proposed as a response to the crisis in the relationships between society, environment, science and technology; it establishes the content evolution in the teaching of chemistry and environmental and sustainable education. Thirdly, it compares the STSE approach with socio-scientific issues (SSI) and socially acute questions (SAQ) from the point of view of chemistry education. Fourthly, it explains the approximation of two types of education, scientific and environmental education, through curricular environmentalization, as it considers the approaches linked to STSE, STS and SAQ. Fifthly, it shows how the STSE approach favors citizenship education, scientific citizenship, and environmental citizenship for a holistic and complex transformation of science education. These five aspects demonstrate that the STS/STSE approaches have allowed the modification of traditional content in science education for a more contextualized content, in order to train subjects to respond to current challenges, especially those connected with the socio-environmental crisis.